1.
How do the characters seem to feel about the
lottery?
2.
Who wins the lottery?
3.
What does one win in the lottery?
4.
In what Point of View is “The Lottery”
narrated?
5.
Write a thematic statement about “The
Lottery”
 WHO
tells the story?
 How much is this person allowed to know?
 How does the story get told?
 To what extent does the narrator look inside
the characters (and report their thoughts and
feelings)?
 Narrator’s



knowledge is unlimited
Comments
Peers inside
Interprets behavior
 Most
flexible
 Shifting of viewpoints can be difficult to
follow
 Narrator
is “limited” to one character (main
or minor)
 Filter
 No knowledge of what other characters are
thinking, feeling or doing
 Closer to real life
 Helps to show characterization because it
reveals biases and limitations
 One
character tells the story personally
 NO interpretation by the author
 Great for dramatic irony if the reader begins
to realize things that the character doesn’t
 Narrator



only shows what it seen or heard
No commenting
No interpreting
No thoughts of feelings
 Reader
has to draw his or her own inferences
 How
does the character’s mind and
personality affect the interpretation of what
is going on in the story?


Is he perceptive or imperceptive?
Should we accept what he says or discount it?
 IS
the author choosing the point of view to
reveal or hide things? Or is he misleading us?

Look at the “Miss Brill” (p.174), “Everyday Use”
(p.166), and “Once Upon a Time” (p. 231)
Who is telling the story? Identify the point of viewexplain how you know it is THAT point of view How much does the narrator know about the people
around her?
 What does the narrator choose to tell the reader
about? What, if anything, is the narrator NOT telling
us?
 What biases does the narrator have? In what ways is
the narrator limited in the telling of the story?

 Prepare:


5
Answer the “Examining Point of View” Questions
for “The Lottery”
Think about how the POV supports theme
volunteers
 Discuss
 Be
how the point of
prepared to tap in!
Read “Hills Like White Elephants”- focus on Point of View and
how the author uses it to reveal important elements of the
story
Once there was a cruel and unjust king in an
ancient kingdom in Asia. One of his subjects
displeased him, so he sent to that subject a white
elephant, as a ‘gift.’
In that culture, a white elephant was sacred,
and could not be slaughtered for meat or other
uses, and could not be put to work (as other
elephants might be) as a labor-animal.
The unlucky subject thus had to care for and
feed the elephant, which lives on average as long
as a human, and over the course of his life the
expense of caring for and feeding the elephant
(which has an enormous appetite) ruined him
financially, leaving him destitute.
Turn and Talk: Prepared to share your partners’ ideas
“If a writer of prose knows enough about
what he is writing about he may omit things
that he knows and the reader, if the writer is
writing truly enough, will have a feeling of
those things as strongly as though the writer
had stated them. The dignity of movement
of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it
being above water. The writer who omits
things because he does not know them only
makes hollow places in his writing.”
3

volunteers:
Prepare to dramatically read the dialogue of
“Hills Like White Elephants”
 The



rest of us at our tables:
Draw out and label the plot pyramid for this
story
Determine if the characters are flat/round/static
and static/dynamic
Create one thematic statement per table
How does the POV support the theme?
 Identify
 What
the setting of this story
mood/atmosphere does it present?
 Does
it change or alter as the story
progresses?
 How
does it support the theme of the story?
Identify the Setting of three different stories we
have read in this unit. Think about how they
support the Themes of those works.